The private letters usually dealt with matters of the greatest urgency and diplomatic delicacy and were intended only for the eyes of the recipients, not for subordinates in the Foreign Office. They were sent with special care by diplomatic courier so as not to fall into the hands of the United States Post Office where they might be appropriated by press reporters. The Barneses have provided each letter with an introduction in order to place it in its contemporary context. Allusions within the letters are clarified by notes. Brief biographical sketches of key individuals are included in an appendix. Because of the private nature of these letters, they give a fuller and more human dimension to the events they describe. There are remarkable insights concerning American politics and society by foreign diplomats who were not casual travelers but experienced observers trained to note and record their impressions.

T. E. Lawrence’s dispatches during the Arab Revolt have been published before, but only in an edited and incomplete form, as they were printed for a strictly limited wartime readership in the Arab Bulletin. Now, in this scholarly edition, they are published in full for the first time. They give us a direct inside view of his dealings with the Arab leaders and show us how he presented them to his superiors in Cairo. These wartime writings reveal vividly his impressions of the periods he spent in the desert and the conditions he found there, and they record how the Arab uprising developed and how he became increasingly involved in it. They make fascinating reading for, in his sometimes outspoken way, he reported on the military potential of the Arab fighters and recommended how they should be supported in their struggle against the Ottoman empire. This new collection of his dispatches is a valuable addition to the literature on Lawrence for it allows readers to trace the course of the revolt as he wrote about it at the time. They are printed in chronological order with full explanatory notes. The editor Fabrizio Bagatti provides a perceptive introduction which sets them in their wartime context, fills in the military and political background to the strategic situation in the Middle East and describes Lawrence’s important role as an intermediary between the Arabs and the British.